The year 2013 will be initiated by the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice and as such, qualifiers will be taking place throughout the coming weeks.

From January 18-20, 2013, the Intel Extreme Masters will make its first stop ever in Katowice, Poland. Held inside Spodek, the countries most famous venue for major concerts and sporting events, the event will have a StarCraft II and a League of Legends tournament with a total prize purse of 82.000$.

"Poland is a country of great eSports traditions with two championships in the Intel Extreme Masters as well. Announcing an event in Poland fills me with great personal pride because I am Polish myself," says Michał Blicharz, Director Pro Gaming at Turtle Entertainment GmbH. "This event would not be happening if it wasn’t for the support and commitment from the city of Katowice and its President Piotr Uszok."

Intel Poland, George Woo, Carmac & ESL Poland

Katowice will be the fourth stop of the 2012/13 season of the Intel Extreme Masters. It started in August at gamescom in Cologne, Germany where Moscow 5 and MVP qualified for the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship at CeBIT 2013. Two more stops will take place this and the last unknown will be announced soon.

The qualification process

The European Section will run two open qualifiers for each European Region. The best team of each qualifier will earn a slot in the Crossrealm Qualifier on Friday, 7th December. The other four slots will be filled with the best four European Teams after IEM ranking. This 8 teams, out of these open qualification cups and the seeding, after IEM ranking, will play for a total of 3 slots in the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice. Which will start at 17 CET on Friday, 17th November. Joe Miller and Jason Kaplan will show you all on ESL TV.